***"The piling of NPAs of defaulting sugar factories of western Maharashtra led to the state-run Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank to go bankrupt last month. This is a major hurdle in crop loan disbursement to suicide-prone farmers in Vidarbha as NABARD has suspended agriculture credit for want of counter-guarantee by the state administration,"****

NAGPUR: Highlighting the precarious situation of farmers in the region, four farmer suicides were reported in last 48 hours in Vidarbha. Of the latest victims, three are from cotton-growing district of Amravati and one from the paddy belt of Bhandara, Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti which keeps a track of such incidents claimed on Saturday.

The four victims were identified as Anil Tandilkar of village Ukapati, Subhash Kasdekar of Ranamalur, Ramesh Jumade of Achalpur (all three in Amravati district) and Anandrao Khande of Tawashi in Bhandara district.

After playing hide and seek for over a month, rain gods may have finally brought some cheer to farmers in Vidarbha. However, the institutional lenders are yet to disburse crop loans to needy farmers. "Probably inability to raise resources in time is leading them to despair and driving cash-starved farmers to end their lives," said Kishore Tiwari of VJAS. With these latest suicides, the farmer suicide toll in the current year has gone up to 440, he claimed

"The piling of NPAs of defaulting sugar factories of western Maharashtra led to the state-run Maharashtra State Co-operative Bank to go bankrupt last month. This is a major hurdle in crop loan disbursement to suicide-prone farmers in Vidarbha as NABARD has suspended agriculture credit for want of counter-guarantee by the state administration," said Tiwari.

He claimed that district administrations have indicated in their reports that crop loan disbursement till date is less than 50% as compared to same period last year. "Farmers eligible for fresh crop loans are left waiting as bankers are facing liquidity crunch with NABARD freezing credit facility of the state apex bank. The state administrator Sudhir Goyal had promised a credit flow of Rs 510 crore in first week of July and another tranche of Rs 500 crore in July second week. But nothing has happened and crop loan disbursement is at standstill," alleged Tiwari

"After the interest waiver of Rs1080 crore in 2006 followed by complete loan waiver of Rs 71,000 crore in March 2008 besides state government's extended loan waiver of Rs 6208 crore in December 2008, it was expected that credit woes of three million Vidarbha farmers would end. But non-professional attitude and non-cooperation of bankers has proved it wrong," said Tiwari. Meanwhile, huge rise in input costs have added to the farmers' burden," he summed up.